


The Lady Has Scars

by zvi



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character of Color, Community: femslash07, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-05
Updated: 2007-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 02:03:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zvi/pseuds/zvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe we should talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lady Has Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ALC Punk! (lyssie)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ALC+Punk%21+%28lyssie%29).



> Written for ALC Punk! in [femslash07](http://community.livejournal.com/femslash07)

Teyla limped out of the infirmary to her room.

Elizabeth was there, with food and chocolate and a warm bottle of tlan oil. Teyla said nothing, just went to her bedroom and removed her pants, lay prone on the bed.

Elizabeth followed her, put a glass of red liquid by her head and a small brown sweet in her mouth.

"Don't drink that," Elizabeth said. "The alcohol will react badly with your drugs. It's for me."

Teyla felt Elizabeth at her hips, pulling back and up, long enough to pull the shift she was wearing over her head, then let her back down again.

"I can bring you water or something."

"No. Thank you." Teyla closed her eyes and breathed slow and steady, waiting. She felt the warm liquid trickle on her back, fast enough and strong enough that it didn't tickle, slow enough so it pooled in the small of her back and didn't rush off onto the bed things. Then she felt Elizabeth's hands, skimming the mostly healed cuts and tears, pressing into the tight and painful muscles. Unsurprisingly, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, the lights were still on, and Elizabeth was stretched out beside her. She felt sore, but a better quality of sore than she'd felt the past week. The drugs were still holding off the sharp, stabbing pains, and her muscles were relaxed enough they didn't pull at her lacerations. She wasn't sure she could get up alone without hurting, though, and she was dying of thirst. "Beloved," she whispered.

Elizabeth's eyes opened. She blinked fuzzily, and Teyla didn't say anything yet, because it would have made no impact. Elizabeth rolled on her side, and then her stomach. She reached to pull the cover over her head and failed, because she was sleeping on top of the bedding. She sat up finally, and said, "The lights are on."

"Beloved," said Teyla again. "Water, please."

Elizabeth blinked at her slowly, then got up and left the room. She returned with a small mug.

"Help me up," said Teyla. Elizabeth blinked, and then pulled her back and up at the hips again, until Teyla was sitting with her legs underneath her, which was less uncomfortable than trying to sit up by herself would have been. She took the mug of water from Elizabeth and drank all of it, much too fast, and was glad she hadn't been given more. She wasn't sure she would have stopped before she got sick. "Thank you."

"Sweetness," muttered Elizabeth, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "Food?"

"Yes." For the first time in three days, Teyla felt hungry.

* * *

Elizabeth re-read the report. They had, once again, made contact with the Genii, made a bad deal with a rebel, been betrayed, and nearly lost everything. She opened the next file, a letter she'd been working on, considering for over a year. She looked up at a knock on her door. "John? Aren't you still off-duty?"

He nodded, but said, "Don't do it."

She thought about faking ignorance, asking what he was talking about. Instead she said, "I can't do this anymore."

He crossed his arms and glared at her. "No one else can lead this place. We wouldn't let them."

She looked down. "I can't do this _to her_ anymore." She heard him approaching her, but she still started when he touched her. She looked up at him.

He was smiling, but ruefully. "Because the rest of Atlantis can go hang?"

"The rest of Atlantis doesn't ask me to use tlan to prevent scarring." She shrugged his hand off. "Somebody has to make hard decisions, somebody has to send people out to die, but it can't be me. Not when she's the one going out."

He looked at her sideways, then licked his lips once, twice. "You," he coughed, looked away, "you should check with her. See how much longer that's going to be an issue."

* * *

Teyla walked off the transport from the mainland and paused just a second. She wasn't expecting Elizabeth to be waiting for her. She went to her and said, "I thought the department heads meeting was today."

"Rodney had food poisoning last night and John stayed up all night taking care of him. That's the two largest departments right there, so it's postponed."

"I should go to him, offer my assistance."

Elizabeth shook her head. "We need to talk, Sweetness."

The walk to Elizabeth's quarters was short and silent. Teyla walked behind, trying to read Elizabeth's body. Her shoulders weren't tight, her stride was long, her arms swung freely. It was all very normal. So, as soon as the door closed, Teyla asked, "Of what do we need to talk?"

"I told John that I was thinking of resigning because I can't send you into the field any longer. He said that I should talk to you first. So what does he think I need to know?"

Teyla blinked, abandoned the door she was leaning against and sat in a large, soft chair. She looked at Elizabeth and said, "I am quitting the gate team and moving to the mainland. Every woman has an obligation, after a culling, to have children, and I am afraid that if I wait longer, I will not be capable."

Elizabeth raised one eyebrow, very high, but said nothing.

"Beloved, I asked John to father my first child, and went to the mainland to arrange a place to live. I have told no one else anything, not Rodney nor Halling nor anyone else. I had planned to tell you tomorrow. This is true."

Elizabeth turned from her, and now her shoulders were pulled in tight and small. Her head was pulled straight and high, and her hands were balls of rage. Teyla could hear Elizabeth breathing, even, controlled, angry breaths. "This is karma."

"What?" asked Teyla.

"There was a man, Simon, on Earth before we left. I left him a video, to tell him I was leaving, instead of saying goodbye myself. I didn't, um, I didn't love him. Enough."

Teyla stood, put her arms around Elizabeth's waist, pressed her forehead between her shoulder blades, and breathed in. "Who is saying goodbye?" And at that, Elizabeth's anger collapsed, and she melted in Teyla's arms. Teyla turned her around, and kissed her, gently, sweetly. She touched Elizabeth's face with her hands, and put her fingers to the back of her beloved's neck. "Who is saying goodbye?"

"You are going to the mainland and having children." She swallowed, pulled back a bit, but put her arms on Teyla's shoulder. "Where am I in your future? Your family?"

"In the city, not half an hour away by a transport that runs every other day. On the gate team, I was gone five days out of seven. Will we not see each other at least as often on the same planet? As for my children, well, we are neither of us the sort of woman to care for babies. Someone on the mainland will want them, and they will know that I am their lifebringer and you are my beloved, but they will also know their parents, and that is how it should be."

* * *

Elizabeth dragged herself away from the gate room, latest crisis contained, all of her people present or accounted for. She thought they might have made friends in the Pegasus Galaxy today, and she had Ronon and Zelenka to thank, of all people.

She opened her door, and saw Teyla sitting on a chair, reading a book, with food and chocolate and tlan oil on the table beside her. "Sweetness, what's the tlan for?"

Teyla raised her shirt and bared her round, dark-striped abdomen, raised an eyebrow.

Elizabeth laughed, collapsed with it, folded in on herself and howled.

Teyla put the book down, careful to bookmark her place, then came to Elizabeth and held out her hand.

Elizabeth ignored her hand. "You do understand the words 'no heavy lifting,' right?" She knelt forward and placed a kiss on Teyla's belly button, then stood and kissed her mouth. "I will not put the oil on you again, not for anything."

Teyla scowled, but she put a chocolate in Elizabeth's mouth anyway.


End file.
